A film by Jumana Manna
Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humour and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it moves between fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the inherited love, joy and knowledge in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.
The film screening will be opened with a short speech by Stephen Bowen, the Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland. After the screening, there will be a discussion with two Palestinian activists; Fatin Al Tamimi and Talha AlAli.
Accessibility
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Credits
A film by Jumana Manna
Biographies
Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.
She has participated in multiple film festivals including Berlinale, Viennale, BAFICI, IFFR, Cairo Cinema Days, Goteborg film festival, Ambulante, Cinéma du Réel, Art of the Real. Her Wild Relatives (2018) won CPH:DOX’s New Visions Award, Sheffield Doc’s Environmental Film Award, DokuFest Kosovo’s Green Dox Award, and Palestine Cinema Days’ Sunbird Award. Manna’s solo exhibitions include Thirty Plumbers in the Belly, M HKA, Antwerp (2021); Tabakalera, San Sebastian, Spain (2019); The Setting of Noon, Home Works Forum 8: Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2019); A Small Big Thing, Henie Onstad Museum, Høvikodden, Oslo (2018); A Magical Substance Flows into Me, Mercer Union, Toronto (2017), Malmö Kunsthall, Malmo (2016), and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015).
Fatin Al Tamimi is Vice-Chairperson and a Director of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign. A diaspora Palestinian woman, has been living and raising her family in Ireland for more than 30 years. Her family originally hails from Hebron and Gaza in Palestine, and she still has close relatives living in both areas. She has been involved for many years in Palestine solidarity work in Ireland, and in 2016 she was elected to the position of Chairperson of the IPSC in which she served for five years, the first Palestinian to hold the position. She is also active in anti-racist, anti-war and women’s groups in Ireland, and has spoken at many events.
Talha AlAli is A Youth Activism Officer with Amnesty International Ireland. A Palestinian human rights activist, performer, lyrist, and hip-hop artist, Talha started fighting for political change and social justice in Palestine at a young age through hip-hop music and theatre in the early 2000s. Talha’s passion for empowering people did not stop at music and theatre. He graduated from university as a psychologist and a counsellor and continued his post-grad in mental health and psychotherapy to work as a psychotherapist alongside his work in human rights.
Funding
This film screening is funded by Amnesty International Ireland and Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Funders of the Film production: Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC, Kulturrådet – Norwegian Arts Council, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Toronto Biennale 2022, BAK – basis voor actuele kunst, Dar Yusuf Nasir Jacir for Art and Research, The Fritt Ord Foundation.
Project Arts Centre is proudly supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.